the "third" option

 

 

                As a child, figuring out if you agree and honor the culture of your parents or if you want to stray away from them and become your own is a hard decision. these two ideas are on both sides of the spectrum and its hard to say "i'm going to be my own identity and this is all wrong, and I don't agree" yet its hard to say "I honor my parents culture and I will live my whole life by it and be just like them." luckily, there is a "third" option, its simple. children can simply honor the culture of their parents, but break away from the parts that they don't agree on.

               My family is Greek, my parents and my grandparents are real involved in the Greek church and all of its parts, including the Greek festival, the retreats, the classes, the services, and the people. a couple years ago it just sempt weird that they seemed all into the religion and culture while around others but around the house it sempt as if they didn't even know what a Greek church was. I was into and liked everything about the church, except for the classes because of the seriousness and the way they questioned my faith. once a got into highschool I was introduced to YoungLife, a nondenominational organization that welcomes highschoolers wanting to start or continue their relationship with the lord. my parents looked at this as an awesome thing for me to be apart of, yet my grandparents thought it was "wrong" as well as my church. what my grandparents didn't realize is that this was just going to help me and my intentions weren't to just leave my Greek culture in the dust.
               To this day, i'm still involved with Greek activities as well as YoungLife activities. every year I am a part of the largest Greek festival in the U.S. which is at my church. I am still friends with all the people of the church, and I attend the services from time to time. since i've been involved with YoungLife I have a whole new look at life, I attended YL club every week, campaigners, weekend retreats, camps and this summer i'm going to a camp for 4 weeks to be a worker. i've grown so much and its been such an awesome experience, this is how I feel that I have been able to honor my families culture, yet break away and become my own as well.